Third term in PLP has been extremely hectic, yet enjoyable and rewarding in the same sense. So far this school year we’ve looked at the Manhattan Project, WWI, The Depression, WWII, and other texts such as Three Day Road and Macbeth. However, after coming back from spring break we started on a new unit called “Fear Factor,” learning about the Atomic Age and exploring the concept of fear.
Before this I knew next to nothing about the Cold War so I found it extremely fascinating to learn about the nuclear arms race, the fight against communism, and how close we came to complete and utter annihilation.
The Cold War was a time of immense tension, and it was different from any other armed conflict in the sense that one wrong move could potentially wipe out all of humanity. A nuke could drop with less than three minutes warning, and if you weren’t killed from searing heat, flying debris, or the impending shock wave, you could still easily succumb to deadly amounts of poisonous radiation. It was a truly scary and sobering time to be alive.
Our main task for this unit was to answer the critical question: “How is fear used as a defensive, political, and cultural tool?” And we were tasked to do so through creating an engaging and informative video essay. However, before we could start writing our essays and compile our footage we had to become experts on the Cold War and the topic of fear. To do so we watched several movies in class for example “Command and Control”, “The War Game”, “Nuclear Nightmares” and “China Syndrome.” We also learned about the significant events of the Cold War through partaking in engaging class discussions, and reading the novel Fallout by Todd Strassor to gain a good historical perspective of the time period.
Before we left on the trip we did two main assignments that were meant to help us narrow down our topic and get us thinking about how fear can be seen throughout history and still today. For one of our assignments we were tasked to write a synthesis essay about how fear shapes behaviour in the book “Fallout” by Todd Strasser and the short film “The War Game.” For our second assignment we had to create a blog post that highlights the fear and stigma surrounding nuclear energy, and how that affects current politics today, by using evidence from the 1976 classic “China Syndrome,” the BBC documentary “Nuclear Nightmares,” and other historical examples.
Once we completed these two assignments we could finally start on our video essay. Well not exactly… In order to get to a sufficient final product we had to go through a lot of critique and revision and we couldn’t just start making our video right away and be done in a night. First we had to brainstorm an idea, then come up with a topic question with evidence to support it. Then after coming back from the trip we had to write our essays and submit them not once, not twice, but three times to be roasted then sent back for revision. Then finally, once our essays were approved we had the green light to start working on our video. However, before I get into the creation process I want to rewind a little bit and talk about our class trip down to the South West.
I want to start off by saying that the Southwest was truly an experience of a life time and I’m so thankful to be part of such an amazing program. On the trip I not only got to experience the Cold War first hand and stand where history took place, but I got to know so many amazing people and make unforgettable memories that will undoubtedly last me a life time.
Going into it I had no idea what to expect, but as soon as we landed in Arizona and I felt the blistering heat of the sun on my skin I knew right away that we were going to have a great time. Each day we got up to leave the hotel at the crack of dawn and we spent almost all day trekking about in the vans to different hotels, famous museums, well known landmarks, popular tours, and different geological sites to collect photos, videos and other information for our videos. In Tucson, Arizona, a few notable places that we visited were the Biosphere 2, The Titan Missile Museum, The Pima Air & Space Museum, The Boneyard and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Out of all these places I enjoyed the Biosphere 2 and the Air & Space Museum, and the Titan Missile Museum the most. The Biosphere 2 was really cool because it consisted of 5 different biomes and essentially the entire thing was a controlled experiment that had other experiments within it, and even a functioning lung! The Pima Air & Space Museum was jaw dropping in the sense that everywhere you went there were different planes from different time periods that told different stories. There were bombers, fighters, jets, airliners, attack choppers, and almost any other military plane under the sun (even an SR-71 Blackbird, capable of 3540 km/h). My personal favourites were the jets and attack choppers from the Vietnam War. Lastly I found the Titan Missile Museum extremely fascinating to walk through and look at because I literally got to go down into the missile phyllo and essentially stand where history took place. You can’t compare that to anything in a textbook, you just can’t.
In Las Vegas we stayed at The Flamingo, originally owned by the famous mobster Bugsy Siegel, and some of the notable places we visited were the Atomic Testing Museum, the Valley of Fire State Park, the Mob Museum, and the iconic Hoover Dam. We also visited the Seven Magic Mountains, the Las Vegas Wax Museum, and saw both the Blue Man Group and Beatles Love live; It was truly an amazing trip and I will never forget it.
However, ironic as it may seem, the best part of the entire experience wasn’t necessarily the numerous places we went or the things we saw, but how many new connections I made with the people in the class. This entire year I’ve enjoyed being a part of PLP, but up until the Southwest trip I had always felt like their were secluded groups within the class and so many people that I never really got a chance to talk to. So on the trip one of the things I tried to do was open myself up and really put in an effort to get to know some of the people that I wouldn’t have talked to otherwise, and I’m extremely glad that I did that because it made me realize that were all so much more alike then we care to admit.
Now back to the video essay! After getting back from the Southwest I had already come up with my question and developed an outline, so the first step was writing the essay, and as I mentioned earlier it was a lengthy and gruelling process… However, after three drafts of revision I was granted permission to start working on my video.
At first I thought the video was going to be the easy part, but I quickly found out that I was sorely mistaken. On my first draft I spent probably 3 hours putting it together and it didn’t even have a single scene. All it was was a bunch of black screens with titles. However, my second draft I had to go beast mode on rage and I handed in nearly 17 minutes of footage. In total I probably spent two full days finding YouTube videos, cutting clips, inserting images, and editing my movie, and it was a very gruelling and frustrating process because it required an immense amount of hard work and time.
When I handed my video in to be critiqued I had high hopes that Ms. Willemse would like it and little doubt that she wouldn’t, so when she told me that I should delete two thirds of my video I was obviously a little hurt. I had worked so hard on it and I wasn’t willing to just throw it all away, but at the same time I wanted it to be good, so I seriously took Ms. Willemse critique into account. However, after much contemplation I decided that I simply didn’t have the time to make so many changes to my video with the debate battle dome around the corner, and so many exams and final probes in other classes. In a perfect world I would’ve made my video shorter, stated my thesis a lot clearer and earlier on, and added in more explain everything’s and video clips that I took myself, but overall I’m extremely proud of my final product and all of the hard work that I put into it.
Below is my video essay talking about how the irrational fear and stigma surrounding nuclear energy is affecting the environment. The topic question is as follows: How have catastrophic nuclear accidents and the immense controversy surrounding Atomic weapon development affected the overall public outlook on nuclear energy today? I hope you enjoy watching!